Jubilee

Main Range #40

Released: 4 February 2003

Listened: 6/12/20

This story by Rob Shearman is one of the more famous Big Finish stories, because it was the basis for the TV story “Dalek,” from the show’s first return season. The two stories really only have one thing in common, but it’s a big thing: The sole surviving Dalek being held prisoner by humans, and the Doctor encountering it in a dark room. I have to say that Christopher Eccleston played that scene better than Colin Baker did, but the Sixth Doctor is merely encountering his nemesis, whereas the Ninth Doctor has all the weight of the Time War to deal with, meeting a scourge he thought was gone forever. For the rest, though, the humans in this story are remarkably stupid and insane, even the ones who are just pretending to be stupid for nefarious purposes. Evelyn gets the part that Rose played, of the companion who believes a Dalek can be redeemed, even when the Doctor doesn’t. The resolution, though, is dramatically different, with a big chunk of timey-wimey that’s never adequately explained. It leads to a couple of Daleks shouting philosophy at one another, which doesn’t make a ton of sense, and the Doctor speechifying on the dark side of human nature, which is a bit over the top. Bottom line, the parts of this story that inspired “Dalek” are great, and deserve to be remembered, but the rest doesn’t make any sense.